Five times Reid is a badass, and one time he isn't
by 898700
Summary: What the title says.  Set in my "Undercover Pretty Boy" AU, where Reid is an undercover CIA agent posing as a male supermodel, before moving to the FBI. I suggest you to read the other two fics first, otherwise some parts of this might not make sense.


AN: This story is set in the same universe as my "Life as a pretty boy" and "Life with a pretty boy" fics, where Reid is an undercover CIA agent posing as a male supermodel. I suggest you to read these two first, otherwise some parts of this fic might not make sense. As the title says, these are five times Spencer Reid is a badass, and one time he isn't. Events in sections One through Four are mentioned in "Life with ...", the not-a-badass section is indirectly related to an event already mentioned in "Life with ..." and to Gideon's section in the same fic (which hasn't been posted at the moment, today being Feb/12/2012).

* * *

><p><strong>One/**

He's not Matt Gray tonight, but still he's dressed like eye candy. He does have a name, and a background story, but this being a disposable identity, he knows there's no need to spend much time going over the details, and instead goes for the average.

The average boy toy with a sugar daddy, that is.

The man who brought him to the party (the man who brought him to Moscow) is a local entrepreneur, a disgustingly rich one in fact, but one who has helped the USA government in the past and will likely continue to do so as long as there are benefits for him from the association. Given that he has more to lose if said connection is made public, the Agency is understandably certain that there's not going to be a leak on this particular operation. Plus, his being known for having a thing for pretty twinks makes this business man the perfect cover.

Perfect for the Agency, of course; he-who-is-not-Matt-Gray might have a few complains to share, if questioned. But as he's unlikely to be asked (given the fact that a daunting number of terrorist groups are working together, and chemical weapons are without doubt involved), he smiles prettily and laughs at the man's jokes, his mind's real focus elsewhere. Searching, finding, waiting for the right moment.

A-ha.

He leaves for the bathroom, and instead of returning to the man's grabby hands he makes a detour to the bar. It takes him not long to win the attention of the hostess' daughter. After that everything goes according to script, and soon enough he's memorizing page after page of code. As expected by their Interpol contact, the Russian mafia shows up. They are late, thought: he's already reached the back cover, and sleight of hand allows him to keep the small book hidden despite the thoughtful search.

The business man is understandingly furious when the Bratva approaches him with questions about his companion, and an interesting tale to share. Not only was his date cheating on him, he was cheating on him with a _woman_. So on their way back to the man's residence the limousine stops, and then continues with a screech of tires, leaving the young pretty man behind. He still is not Matt Gray, but he's not the average eye candy of earlier. For a moment he's Spencer Reid, his mind going swiftly over the data stored there, dropping the recently acquired in the waiting slots.

Then a car stops and offers him a ride. The man behind the wheel takes the cigar out of his mouth in order to call him _pretty boy_ in Russian, and the woman in the copilot seat laughs and winks suggestively at him. To anybody listening it is a joke and a promise (or a threat). But to Pretty Boy, now in the back seat, it is the ridiculous code name he's been stuck with for years, and the signal the Agency requests they exchange.

He swaps the black notebook for an already booted laptop, entering his password, his fingers rapidly moving over the keyboard as soon as the screen changes. In the front seat a click signals the connection via satellite phone, and he starts his report while the female agent photographs and sends every single page to the HQ. Two hours later, while their boss delivers the information to Interpol, he's crossing the border via extremely illegal means. Two days later he's back in Milan.

* * *

><p><strong>Two/**

One shot, followed by other three in rapid succession. _Bang_, _bang bang bang_.

Then a blood curling scream,

"Reid!"

He hears two people, three, rushing up the stairs, the old wood steps creaking at the weight. He can barely breathe, but he knows, he knows-

"He's not breathing!"

"JJ, calm down. Call the medics, wait outside. Morgan -"

"There's no blood. I don't think …"

"His vest, take it off. Prentiss?"

"He couldn't be deader. Three shots in the middle of the head."

"Damn, Pretty Boy, I'm never going to get you mad at me."

"Is he breathing?"

"Yeah, I think-"

He whimpers, the pain finally making him breathe deeply, his lungs expanding.

He _groans_.

"Easy, easy, kid."

"Stay down, Reid. You may have cracked a rib."

"JJ?" he manages to mutter. He would've preferred to say _I'm fine_, except the fact that his head is buzzing tells him he probably hit it hard. He can handle a cracked rib. He's spent days in the middle of the woods with a cracked rib.

"Reid, hey, hey Reid. Stay with me, kid. Keep your eyes open, can you?"

"JJ is okay," another voice says and he turns his head slowly, blinking.

Rossi. He didn't hear Rossi enter the room. Why didn't he hear Rossi enter the room? He frowns, keeps his eyes locked with Rossi's, who is frowning back. Except he's not, Rossi is frowning for something different, he can say.

Why is Rossi frowning?

"We're going to move you to the stretcher, Dr. Reid," somebody says, somebody he doesn't recognize. His mind stutters through his options, whether he should flight or fight, where's his gun, what's in his pockets, before he realizes it is a paramedic. Two, two paramedics. Why didn't he hear their approach?

He turns his head as they take him out of the room. Rossi is still frowning, and he's talking to Hotch (_Aaron_). He can't hear them, but he can focus on their lips despite the pain and the nausea and the blurriness. He recognizes one word before it gets too much and he has to close his eyes, before the paramedics reach the top of the stairs.

He can't hear them, but his mind provides the aural memory. Rossi has used this word before, while discussing cases, while delivering profiles. He says _overkill_. Hotch (_Aaron_) says nothing.

* * *

><p><strong>Three/**

"Fuck!"

Despite the situation, Reid smiles. Prentiss is not the princess Morgan teasingly accuses her of being, fine tastes in food and wine non-withstanding, but there is something both silly and thrilling at hearing her curse.

"That was his last bullet," he announces, and she looks at him with surprise before risking peaking around the car they are hiding behind.

Nothing happens, but still she looks dubious. He doesn't hesitate, sure at his count and at his knowledge of the type of weapon their UNSUB, now fully identified as Marshall Hopkins, is using. Reid is out of his vest before Prentiss reacts, and he's handing her his revolver before she recovers her voice.

"Reid, what-"

"We can't shoot him, we need to know where he's keeping Tommy King," he explains, taking off his shoes, searching his pockets so there's nothing heavy on them to pull him down.

"We don't have to shoot to kill," she counters back, taking his hotel key, a handful of coins, a wrinkled business card, a packet of gum, a well used pencil.

"If we hurt him and he falls, the stream might pull him before he recovers."

He looks pointedly at both riverbanks, waiting for her to admit what they both know. The only way to reach the small boulder Hopkins is perched on is by water. The man is already trembling in his cold, wet clothes. By the time Hotch and Morgan arrive in the boat he's going to be hypothermic, and his victim has most likely lost enough blood already for them to risk waiting.

Reid pops into the car to fish one of the ziplocs he keeps in his bag, puts his phone in it and makes extra sure it is perfectly closed, puts it into a plastic bag Morgan stuffed into the cup holder earlier, and ties the bundle to his belt. Prentiss doesn't say a thing when he climbs over the railing, but she is obviously displeased. He wants to tell her she shouldn't worry, he's a competent swimmer, the river is deep enough, he's not even going to have to go against the stream.

Nonetheless he doesn't, mostly because they are both aware of the dangers. He has too little fat in his body, and the cold has never been something he handles well. By the time Hotch and Morgan arrive _he_ is going to be the one suffering from hypothermia. Furthermore, there's a chance that Hopkins is carrying another weapon, spare bullets even. He could well be jumping to his death, for all they know.

So instead of looking back and saying something, he looks ahead, breathes deeply … and _jumps_.

* * *

><p><strong>Four/**

_"You have to be the most foolish, imprudent, dim-witted person I've ever known, Spencer Reid."_

Reid chuckles, most of his attention at the creaking stairs he is climbing. If it weren't for the fact that he's a misstep away from becoming the victim of a heavily booby trapped, half crumbling, two-story house, he would admire John Pike's genius. He's left a trail of corpses all across the country, each found after much digging in the ruins of collapsed old homes. He's obviously an expert in what he does, but despite knowing that all of his traps has been a success, Reid has to enter this one.

Because each victim so far has been a teenage runaway, and because, according to forensics, death by crumbling house is their COD.

_"If you don't come out in the next ten seconds, I'm following you, falling building or not."_

He immediately reaches for his comm. "Rossi, stay outside."

_"Like hell I'm going to."_

"Rossi," he starts to say, pausing to stifle a curse. The damage on the second floor frames is as extensive as in the first, worse even. "_Dave_," he starts again, stressing the name. "Please stay outside. Make sure nobody enters the building."

He walks carefully, mindful of missing and loose floor planks. There are whimpers coming from the room most to the left, but he doesn't hurry. Slowly but steadily he moves forward, stopping at the other two doors to make sure there's nobody hiding.

_"Morgan is not going to like it,"_ Rossi finally says, his voice grave and serious.

"Let him take a look through the front door. He's going to agree with me."

The room he finds the girl into is the only one without pieces of heavy furniture lying around. Furthermore, the room is so bare that it is missing a good seventy percent of its flooring.

"I found her, she seems unharmed," he informs Rossi before addressing her. "Kitty, I'm Agent Reid with the FBI. We're going to get you out of this, okay?"

She's scared but willing to follow his instructions, a fact he's thankful for while watching her craw across the weakest-looking beam. She doesn't even ask why he directs her away from the apparently stronger, shorter beam (it's obviously been tampered with). It takes long, excruciating minutes but she's eventually close enough for him to reach and, with a steady and calm grip, pull her over the gap's edge.

She clings to him with all her strength, and he allows her a moment to recover. Then the sound of police sirens and screeching tires signals the rest of the forces' arrival, and they have to move.

"Kitty, I need you to follow the same path I do. Can you do that?"

She nods, still not talking. It is worrying, but not unexpected. She's going to need psychological counseling, but first he needs to take both of them out of the house. He's so focused on the task that it takes him a moment to realize somebody is shouting outside. He recognizes Morgan's voice even if not the words, and the urgency and then anger on them makes him immediately alert.

Rossi's _"Reid, watch out!"_ is immediately followed by hurried steps, a bang from the front door and a frantic "Kathie!"

"Daddy!"

Reid reacts, no time for doubt, his mind registering and dismissing as irrelevant Morgan's litany of curses and Mr. Wilkins' struggles. He takes hold of the girl's wrist so hard he's likely to leave marks, and hurries both of them to the first bedroom. The floor crumbles under their feet, the house sliding and crumbling and creaking all around them. She stumbles, then trips, but he manages to pull her up and keep them moving with barely a pause.

He's following her under the desk when, with a horrifying groan, the house gives up and goes down with a series of lurches that seems to take forever.

_"I want you to know there's a history of heart attacks in my family,"_ Rossi informs him when Reid finally manages to pull his phone out and answer it, a crying Kitty plastered to his right side.

"Top floor, the first room right in front of the stair. Furthest wall, the one that looks over the backyard, we're under a really old desk, pretty strong, I think it is Oak. I might get one of these for my place."

He hears Rossi's chuckle, Prentiss' heartfelt threat, Morgan's half muffled expletives, Hotch's barked orders. Both he and Kitty are going to be heavily bruised during the next week, and he's a hundred percent certain he broke his left leg, and it is going to take a while before they are set free, and he really, really hates the prevailing darkness. Also, Hotch is going to have his ass for this.

And Morgan.

And JJ.

So he puts it all aside and hugs Kitty back, even if he's never felt comfortable with people crowding his personal space, and says, "Let me tell you about my team."

* * *

><p><strong>Five/**

"The good thing about having an opportunity killer as kidnaper is that he's in no hurry to dispose of us. Otherwise he would have offed us as soon as it became clear that we don't fit the victimology."

Reid groans, both at Morgan's attempt at humor and at the skull splitting headache that makes him wish for a return to unconsciousness.

"Of course, there's the fact that the UNSUB is a sadistic bastard that's going to torture us as soon as he returns," Morgan adds and Reid glares at him.

They keep silent for five, six seconds, the metallic rattle as Reid sits up the only sound that's heard. He doesn't need to look to discover he's handcuffed to the wall. Morgan, similarly cuffed at the opposite side of the room, looks dizzy too, but noticeably more awake than Reid feels.

"What time is it?" he finally manages, already cataloging his symptoms.

"Don't know. It can't be too late, if it was truly chloroform."

"It was."

Morgan nods in agreement. Mentally, Reid makes the math that he knows Morgan has already made. They were kidnapped shortly after eight, and according to the profile their UNSUB has a regular nine-to-five job. They have at least six hours until he returns.

More than enough, Reid decides, turning his fingers slightly to the left. One of his handcuffs opens with a jingle. It takes him significantly shorter to free his other wrist.

"How did you hide a lockpick?" Morgan asks, twisting so he can see Reid work with Morgan's handcuffs.

"Piano wire," Reid explains, showing his bloodied hand for a second before getting up and moving to examine the door lock. It is a good one, and there's no way he's going to be able to open it without a tensor. He has a second piece of wire in his left ankle, but the extended paper clip in his shirt's cuff might be enough. It was too thick for the handcuffs, but if he's not wrong …

He smiles when, less than ten minutes later, the door opens with a click.

"Next time you get kidnapped I'm not going to worry about you, Mr. Bond, James Bond."

Reid rolls his eyes, because it is not like Morgan doesn't know how to pick a lock. Reid just happens to have contingency plans for about everything, which is what you tend to do when you've seen what he has. Still, Morgan doesn't need to know that he's always preparing for the worst case scenario. Knowing Morgan, he's going to tell Garcia. Knowing Garcia, she's going to want to turn him into a diehard optimist.

He can almost feel the glitter.

"Please do," he retorts. "Not all kidnappers are going to be this careless."

Morgan shakes his head with what Reid can only call _fondness_, before going back to being professional. There's a significant chance that they are alone at the UNSUB's house, but they are not going to take any risk. They might not have weapons, but Morgan is really good in hand-to-hand combat, and Reid is really good sneaking around unnoticed.

They exchange a glance and then Morgan opens the door.

* * *

><p><strong>Minus one/**

"Thanks for backing me, earlier," he tells Hotch after the rest of the team _mysteriously_ disappears and only the two of them are left at the table.

Hotch doesn't shrug, because, well, _he is Hotch_, but he does something that gives the perfect impression of someone shrugging concerns as inconsequential.

He says "The Detective was out of place," and he says it with finality, ready to dismiss the issue for Reid's sake. Which Reid should just accept and be thankful for, because it will allow him to keep his little lie, no questions asked.

Except that Reid knows things are not going to be as easy as he would've preferred, so he says "Aaron, I'm an addict," taking Hotch by surprise. "I'm telling you this as my friend, but also as my boss," he continues. "And I want you to know that I'm going to Strauss when we get back to Quantico tomorrow."

"Reid, I'm sure we can-"

"Oh I know we can, by which of course we mean you can." He shakes his head, his stomach in knots, wishing he could take back his words. "We both know she's going to use this against you, and we both know that Detective Kim, if not his boss, already called her with their suspicions. And as much as I love this job, which by the way is a really twisted thing to say, I know that any agreement you reach with her is only going to be temporal. And I can't live like that."

"I'm sorry," Hotch says, and Reid can tell they are both aware of how inadequate his words are, because without further information (and Reid is not going to give him further information, not now, maybe never), Hotch doesn't know what there is to be sorry about. So he offers "I'll do everything in my hands to make sure you are treated fairly," which is the right thing to say given the circumstances.

So Reid offers back all he has, which is "John knows," and "I've been going to NA meetings since moving to Virginia," and "I've been tested for drugs at least once a week since I joined the FBI," and "I've been clean for almost four years."

And, when asked if there's something else Hotch can help him with, Reid says "I'm going back to my room. I know everybody is going to come back to ask if I'm fine. Could you, could you tell them?"

Because there's no way he's going to face his teammates, his friends, and tell them himself.

* * *

><p>AN2: What scenes and events in this AU (I call it "Undercover Pretty Boy") would you like to see? I've something planned for Hankel, and Doyle, maybe a little bit of Foyet. Requests? Also, I'm thinking of doing something like "Life with ...", but instead of BAU members meeting and getting to know Reid, I'd use Kevin, Will, Henry, Jack ... Strauss, Greenway, Seaver, Todd? Katie Cole?<p> 


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